Lord, When Did They Realize This?

Dear Father,

When did these people realize that the Old Soja man is a monster who cannot be refined? Is it because they are not getting what they expected? You see Father, whenever you get into something with high expectations; chances are that you might come out broken and dare not to take any such risk again, when disappointment sets in.

And you know this is what I think is the tale of the Old Soja man and his renegades who are now trying to unseat him.  Many of them apparently joined him with diverse motives and seeing that things are not working out their way, they now have a lot to say.

Ehn, you mind them, when did they actually get to know that the man could not be refined or has turned their union into a tribal faction? Did they not read about his history sometimes back before jumping on his boat?

Didn’t they follow the man’s track record, the people who were his most trusted soldiers those days; I mean the composition of his army then. What make them think that he was going to leave behind his lieutenants or his tribesmen over night?

Don’t they know that Soja man believes in order and that the key word is obey, obey and obey? Don’t they realize that once a soldier always a soldier and so the patterns of just take order don’t complain is part and parcel of the person’s life? That means the Old Soja man believes that all those with him are there to serve at his will and pleasure. And if he thinks only his kinsmen will take order so be it.

Father, I heard one of them saying that the Old Soja man will be the worst thing to ever happen to this country should he be elected to rule our village. Can you imagine this? So they knew all those things, yet still they made us to understand that he was the right man for our village.

Father, does this suggest that they had intended to use him just to get their personal aims accomplish; you know, bring their union to a recognizable level and weigh in to the biggest bidder, is that what they are saying to us?

Father, I heard some of them saying all the donations people are making to the union the man is using them for his personal interest. Ask them Father, how much have they also been able to attract to the party?

You see Father, in this our little village, people tend to form political parties around a single individual. They tend to use that individual popularity to achieve their so-called political ambitions. They always want equal dividend but have no capital to produce the profit that will translate into the payment of dividends.

And once the man is not seeing your contribution coming in terms of attracting donations and all he sees flowing into the coffers of the party is from his personal contacts, definitely the man will treat it like his personal property. He doesn’t care how you feel; remember they say he that pays the piper calls the tune.

But Father is it true that the people who are now making this noise behind the Old Soja man actually collected some lay thing from… I don’t want to call the place name. Well, my son, whether they collected it or not, the point you are making is very clear. People in this village always want to reap what they have not sowed.

They join political parties with the intend of enriching themselves not because of the ideologies. Have you heard all the noise about the undemocratic practices within the various political parties? Father you often hear some of them complaining how this person or that person is dictatorial they hardly call meetings and there has been no convention here and there.

But ask some of these people who make these allegations against their leaders when last they ever contributed a cent to the party as due? Even when they say let’s have convention or meeting, their anticipation is that the so-called political leader will sponsor the entire meeting, lodge them and give them perdiems on top of it. That is everything should be a win, win situation for them. They just want to reap but don’t want to invest.

Now, Father, in such a case human as we are the person with the bucks feels he can appoint whosoever he wants as trusted ally and he or she doesn’t care how you feel about it because at the end you are only there to withdraw and can’t invest.

A friend from a neighboring village asked me the other day about which party I think has the best platform for our village. I laughed and asked him to rephrase the question by saying, who you think have the best platform for the village. Because Father, the parties we have here are build around individuals with the cash. So what the individual with the cash think and feels is what everyone follows.

That is why even the crook with the cash can attract followers. They don’t believe in anything he says all they want is at the end of the plenty talking he must drop something. And when you are not dropping anything like the Old Soja man, then you are considered a dictator and must be booted out of the party.

Father, I remember attending a rally sometime in 2005. At that rally, non-of the so-called followers there were interested in what their leader was saying, all they did was to clap and shout, even with all his grammatical errors and poor pronunciations, they were just clapping because they had heard that the man had brought some gifts and that after the program he would have it share amongst them.